


The Return

by evil olive (evilolive)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Awkward Boners, Awkward Flirting, Complete, F/M, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Harry Potter Next Generation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Malfoy Manor, No Smut, Swearing, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Wizarding Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:07:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8022079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilolive/pseuds/evil%20olive
Summary: Law student Scorpius Malfoy hasn't seen research scientist Rose Weasley since he kissed her on the last day of school. That was three years ago. Finally, Scorpius is ready to ask her out - and demand some answers. After a rocky start, the evening goes better than expected. However, before they can take the next step in their relationship, Scorpius and Rose must first face the trauma of their parents' past.





	The Return

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2008, when I had a whole post-Epilogue world worked out and fresh in my mind. I was critical of the epilogue and wrote this to challenge myself to create an emotionally realistic scenario. I wanted to show events of the war still reverberating and having an impact on the adult lives of the next generation. 
> 
> I aso thought it was interesting to explore Ron struggling to move on from Hermione being tortured during the war. 
> 
> In this story, Scorpius and Rose are former friends with issues in the recent past and their spiky banter reflects that. I don't know why I'm feeling the need to explain that. 
> 
> The story ends on a hopeful note but not happily. If you read, hope you enjoy.

"Mm, Honeydukes. What a treat." Rose took the ice cream. "Did you go all the way to Hogsmeade?" She gave him a sideways dig in the ribs, a smile lighting her face, pale in the strong July sunshine.

"There's a concession by the gate," he said, before he could stop himself. She arched an eyebrow. _Shit_. He'd walked into that one. At that moment, the roar of the crowd—deafening and continuous for the past two hours—cut out, saving him. Rose broke eye-contact, narrowing her gaze to sweep the stadium. He found what she was looking for a second before she did. "There it is," he shouted."Look!"

"I see it!" The match commanded the whole of their attention for the next thirty seconds. A blob of ice-cream dropped off Rose's spoon. The stadium erupted. "That's that then," she said briskly. "Come on, let's beat the rush." Expertly, she started weaving her way through the seats towards the nearest flight of stairs. He followed. Without conferring, they headed down into the bowels of the building towards the emergency exit that was always open.

 

*

 

The floor of the restaurant was tiled, and the furniture spindly. Rose peered over her menu. "Isn't this place a bit..."

"What?"

"Expensive?"

He shrugged, and studied the wine list. The prices _might_ have gone up a tad since his seventeenth birthday. Not that he'd been the one footing the bill that time. "The Leaky Cauldron's got a two for one offer on tonight," he said coolly. "We can go there if you'd rather."

"Don't get prickly. I appreciate the invitation. I just hadn't realised you and Al are in the habit of post-match dinners a deux."

"We aren't."

"So why have you brought me here?"

"You must know why I invited you?" There couldn't be another reason she'd agreed to spend a minute longer than necessary in his company. "The internship? At the Ministry?" He watched closely. Finally, her eyes flickered, and she looked down and away.

"Yes, I heard about that. How's it working out?" Still avoiding his eye, Rose reached over and took the wine list out of his hand. A second later, a waiter was at her elbow. She indicated a bottle. He couldn't see the name of the one she was pointing to, but it was near the top of the list with the cheaper ones. He could only hope she hadn't chosen the house white.

"Great, actually. Your mother's great to work for."

"That's nice." Rose returned to her scrutiny of the menu. "When did you start?"

Her body language was giving nothing away. Was she rubbing his nose in how easily she'd got him the position? The girl he'd known had never been vindictive, or vengeful, but a lot could happen in three years, he supposed. Perhaps she was just embarrassed at giving patronage to a former acquaintance with no connections or contacts. He masked his uncertainty with the palaver of tasting the wine, which had just arrived. "You mean you don't know?"

"Why should I?" Rose was staring at the menu as though she was trying to burn a hole through it. "I only found out the other day when Al offered me his ticket for the match."

He took a large gulp of his wine. Diabolical, of course.

"I haven't been home recently," continued Rose in the same distant voice. "Too busy in the lab."

"I just assumed…"

"What?"

 _Say it_. In a strangled voice, he managed to get the words out. "That you'd put in a good word for me."

"Then this evening was to thank me?"

He nodded. After all the petty humiliations he'd experienced in the last year, he should be used to this. Rose was staring at him. "You have _met_ Mum, right? Even if I'd been around, she wouldn't have told me you'd applied."

He couldn't process what she was saying.

"You got the job by yourself, OK? No need to feel grateful." She was openly laughing at him, pricking his fragile bubble of self-importance the way she always had. He considered casting a spell that would cause the tiled floor to crack open and swallow her.

"I suppose that's why you've been treating me with kid gloves all afternoon?" She was merciless. This was the Rose he knew. "I must say I was beginning to wonder who'd Polyjuiced the real Scorpius Malfoy." She lifted her glass. "Congratulations, superstar. "I'll pay, of course. This is a celebration."

Despite her sarcasm, his spirits rose. There were two courses to come before she could politely leave. After the meal he'd only have a handful of Galleons left in his Gringott's account, but so what? He was gainfully employed and, moreover, it appeared he'd got there on merit. The evening could only improve. He lifted a finger to summon the waiter back. "We're ready to order."

A second bottle followed the first—red, his selection—and the atmosphere warmed. Rose was waxing nostalgic about school days, carefully avoiding uncomfortable topics, like the circumstances under which they'd last met. They'd slipped so easily into the teasing of their younger days he could almost believe the three years of silence had never happened. He might be none the wiser as to the reason she'd dumped him like a heavy brick three years earlier, or why she'd jumped at the chance of her cousin's season ticket this particular Saturday, but that was just fine with him.

"When did you pay the bill?" Rose sidestepped and held out her hand for her coat before the hovering Maitre d' could put it on for her.

"When you went to the toilet. I invited you, remember?"

She walked through the door he was holding for her, ostentatiously holding it open for him in turn and sticking out a red-wine stained tongue as he walked past.

"This evening is starting to feel suspiciously like a date."

He knew better than to walk into a trap like that. "You don't go on dates, remember?"

"Where'd you get that from?"

"It's what you always said at school. You told all your worshippers you were busy with your studies."

"Well, that part is still true, as it goes."

"There you go then. Case closed."

"Nicely done. You should be a lawyer."

"Ha." He was feeling more comfortable by the second.

"But actually, I still don't go on dates with men like you."

He should have remembered that conversations with Rose tended to take unpredictable and sharp turns. He kept walking at the same steady pace as before, and said lightly, "What men are those?"

"Oh, you know. Men I've known since I was eleven. Men who've stayed at my cousin's house in the holidays and seen me in my Cannons pyjamas." She slung a drunken arm around his neck and whispered, "Men who sleep around with undiscerning women."

Her moist, warm breath was against his neck. He moved away from the pressure of her breasts against his arm, unwrapping her wrist. Too late. Almost three years had passed, but his dick was telling him it was yesterday.

They'd kissed only once, a sloppy lunge outside the Hog's Head after their final exams. At the Potter's a few weeks later, he'd been all set to ask her out. That day, she'd acted like nothing had happened, and blanked him at every turn. He figured he'd left it too late, blown it somehow, but assumed there'd be more chances. After all, they were friends, they'd see each other all the time. But it hadn't worked out that way.

"I don't _sleep around_. What are you basing that on?"

"It's a small world. I hear things." Rose danced away from him. "Are we getting the bus or Apparating?"

"Did you want to go on somewhere?" he asked in surprise.

"Of course, why not? It's early."

"It'll be even hotter in town. We could go for a walk."

"Great idea. Not London though. Let's go somewhere different. I know, take us to the best place you can think of. Surprise me."

"You're going to let me decide? Stars must be aligned with Mars."

Ahead of him, Rose stopped dead in the middle of the pavement and spun round. "Scorp, I have _missed_ you." She ran back, threw both arms around him—his waist this time. "No one insults me as well as you, not even Al." She reached into his jacket and slid his wand from his inside pocket. "Shut up and get on with it. And make it somewhere good."

 _Fuck_. Apparating with a hard-on was not his idea of fun.

 

*

 

They stumbled along the line of the hill. Bats circled around their heads, while light from a million glow-worms breathed softly on either side of the path and fireflies danced in front of their faces. He realised he hadn't been here once this summer and wondered why.

"This is really beautiful," Rose said conversationally, "but I keep turning my ankle. Are we going anywhere in particular?"

"Wait until we're out of the trees." A few seconds later, they emerged onto a firm expanse of clean turf. "This is the clearest spot for miles. Lie down."

"Why?"

"Just do it?" Close to her in the darkness, he sensed her resistance, and how quickly it turned to _'What the hell'_. She fell straight backwards, her tall, straight figure landing almost silently next to him against the slope of the hill.

They counted six shooting stars in twenty minutes, by which time the mosquitos had found them. He got up first, and held out his hand. Rose grasped it, springing up as elegantly as she'd collapsed. "What now?"

"Do you need to get back? I can take you." He held onto her hand firmly, ready to Apparate again, but she twisted out of his grip.

"I've got plenty of time. This is where you grew up, isn't it? Take me to your house. I want to see it."

"I didn't grow up here. We only moved here when my grandfather died."

"But it's your home."

He thought about the ugly red-brick house he'd lived in as a little boy, and the stuffy attic conversion he shared now in a drab part of Muggle London. "Yes," he said.

"Let's go then."

He'd hadn't planned on calling in, but Grandmother would appreciate it. His mother and father were away until tomorrow, accompanying Granny Greengrass on her annual summer holiday, so he'd miss them comfortably. Father would take it out on mother, and Mother would cry, but he wouldn't be there to see it. "OK. It's this way. We went past the gates half a mile back there."

"I'd rather not meet your family with a broken leg," said Rose. "Allow me." Her thin arm encircled his waist again and they stepped sideways into nothingness.

 

*

 

The drawing-room was deeply shadowed. The chandelier was rarely lit these days. A slim figure stood by the window, turning in the direction of the open door.

"It's me, Scorpius." He drew his wand and walked over to the fireplace to light one of the lamps on the mantelpiece. Rose followed him into the room, and stood waiting as he went to kiss his grandmother. "This is my friend Rose Weasley. We were at school together."

"Good evening, Mrs Malfoy. It's a pleasure to meet you." Narcissa Malfoy turned slightly away and resumed her contemplation of the grounds.

He was glad he'd warned Rose not to expect a warm welcome. He enquired after his mother and father.

"They will be sorry they were not here when you called."

"I have to get back for work. They'll understand."

"They are your parents. You owe them an obligation." Family, duty—the mantra had been drummed into him since birth. Now they were just words, spoken automatically, with no emotion behind them. His grandmother could scarcely feign interest in the tenets she had once held so dear. Her will, however, remained undiminished. "You will stay tonight."

"I have to take Rosie home."

"Oh, don't worry about me, I can find my own way back…"

"The panelled room, I think, on the third floor will be most suitable for your guest." Narcissa closed the window and extinguished the lamp with an air of finality. "It will be pleasant to have visitors." The listlessness of her tone belied the words. "The house has been so empty since dear Lucius died."

 

*

 

The panelled room had a whiff of damp. "You must be really pissed off." he said grimly, pulling back a musty bed curtain so roughly that the brocade tore. "This wasn't how the evening was supposed to turn out. My dear old gran knows how to get her own way."

Rose flung herself full-length onto the ancient sprung mattress. It rocked from side to side, settling gradually as she stretched out to recline on one elbow. "Don't worry about it. I've got one of my own. There's no arguing with them. What are _you_ so furious about?"

"It's _her_. She doesn't give a damn about anyone or anything since Grandad died. Can't think why, he was a horrible old man. A complete bastard from the second he woke up in the morning, until his first sip of Firewhisky at three o'clock. The only people who came to his funeral were the ones who wanted to check he was really dead."

Rose shuddered. "I'm sorry," she said.

She must be cold, he realised, remembering his responsibilities as host. In fact, if he looked closely he could see the outline of her nipples through her t-shirt. He averted his eyes and busied himself with the fire. "You know you don't have to stay? I can take you home whenever you want."

"I'm OK. Go on telling me about your grandmother."

"Not much to tell. You've seen her, she's like that all the time now. She might as well have died with him. But, of course, I'm still expected to dance attendance as the perfect, dutiful son. Like Dad."

"But you don't."

He lit the kindling with such force that half of it shot up the chimney. "He's pathetic. His reputation's followed me around like a bad smell my whole life."

He was glad Rose didn't even try to dissuade him. Of course, she'd witnessed some of it. At school, she'd been right there next to him and Al whenever one of them had needed back up.

"According to my grandmother, I'm supposed to restore the family fortunes and return glory to the name of Malfoy," he said bitterly. "You know that hill, where we went earlier? It used to belong to us, along with half of Wiltshire. They want me to buy back all the land my grandfather had to sell after the war."

Rose gave a sly grin. "That's not going to happen while you're working for my mother."

He grinned back, bad temper dissipating. "True."

"So it's all just adolescent rebellion, is it?" she prodded. "One day, you'll have had enough of protecting elf rights and defending part-humans. You'll come back here like a good little boy and do what your grandmother wants?"

"S'right. That's why I went through all those years of studying, then another one knocking on doors and having them shut in my face."

"Was it really that bad?"

"You're right. It wasn't that bad. No one said to me in so many words that any firm with principles would refuse to train a Malfoy." He paused to let his words sink in. He'd had enough of this sort of crap over the last few years without explaining himself to someone who hadn't shown the slightest interest until five minutes ago. "I had an interview with your mother, Rose. I don't need another one."

"You've made your point. I'm sorry, OK?" She beckoned to him. "I wish you'd sit down. You're making me tired standing there with your wand out. The fire's lit."

Gingerly, he sat down on the side of the bed. Despite his caution, Rose—and her breasts—rolled a few inches towards him. To his relief and disappointment, she sat up and hugged her knees. "So, tell me. How was it supposed to turn out?"

"What do you mean?"

"This evening. What were you imagining? If tonight _had_ been a date, I'd be feeling pretty set up about now."

"You don't go on dates with men like me, remember?" he said, with a trace of annoyance.

"Calm down, it was a joke."

Not the first one she'd made. Had he given himself away? He frowned and Rose punched him on the arm. "I don't really think you sleep around, you know. Al says you haven't brought anyone back to the flat since you moved in."

He gave a sarcastic laugh. "What would he know about it? He goes home to get his washing done every weekend."

"Let me understand this. You don't want me to think you sleep around, but you don't want me to think the opposite either?"

He moved towards the end of the bed, mainly to get away from thoughts about touching the soft white skin of her arm where it was wrapped around the curve of her knee.

"You're a very good flirt, Rose, for someone who pretends to care about nothing except elemental Transfigurations." The dark wood panels on the walls cast her face into shadow, making it impossible to see her expression.

"We're just getting to know each other again."

"Of course. What else?"

"Look, Scorp. We can go back to being friendly, or we can talk honestly."

He shrugged, and Rose sighed. "It's your choice."

"Why did you come today, Rose?"

"I wanted to see you."

"After three years of leaving by the back door whenever I came in through the front?"

Rose got up and stood with her back to the fire. She was looking at him in a strange way. "You really want to do this?"

"I'm not doing anything. You're the reason we're here. All I've done for the past three years is write to you, and pay the return postage when my letters came back unopened."

She glared at him. "You wrote _twice_. Do you want the postage back now?" He returned the glare with a steady look that said he wasn't going to be intimidated or distracted. Her expression softened, and she nodded in a thoughtful way, as if she was trying to make up her mind about something. "OK. The truth. Remember the last time we saw each other?"

He opted for one eyebrow raised: listening, but barely interested. "Remind me."

"It was when you came to the Potters, the day of Uncle Harry's birthday. The Quidditch tournament, remember?" Did she actually think he'd forgotten? He gave a non-committal nod and gestured to her to continue.

"I didn't _want_ to ignore you that day." There was a lengthy pause. Her t-shirt moved rapidly up and down and her white throat worked as she swallowed several times.

In the end, curiosity won. "So, why did you?"

She turned away, staring into the fire as she began to speak again. "When I came home from school that year, everything was different. Mum thought it was because I'd left school. She kept talking about finding a new routine, and how change wasn't always bad, and could sometimes even be change for the better. Blah, blah, blah. She was being such a hypocrite, I couldn't stand it. We were having breakfast one morning, and she started up again."

After this long speech, Rose came back over to the bed and sat down again. He swung his legs up so that he was leaning back against the bed post, facing her. She met his eyes, and it seemed to help, because she smiled. "I just snapped. I yelled that I wasn't her, that I was glad I'd left school and was looking forward to my training. I said I couldn't wait to get there and be shot of her constant yapping. Can you believe it?" The smile faded, leaving a look of desolation behind.

"Ouch." He tried to imagine shouting at Hermione Granger-Weasley. "Not a typical meal at your house, I'm guessing?"

"You could say that."

"So what happened?"

"Right into the middle of this awful deathly silence, my brother pipes up. He was trying to help, you see. You know how Hugo is—can't stand seeing any of 'his' people at odds with each other."

He nodded, abandoning all pretence at lack of interest.

Rose's voice had gone very quiet, and he had to strain to hear her next words. " _'_ Hugo said, ' _Don't mind Rosie. She's just in a mood because Scorpius Malfoy snogged her, and he hasn't written to her since we got back from school._ '"

His throat was suddenly dry. "And?" He couldn't have said another word.

"And my dad just got up and left the room. He didn't tell me off, and he didn't say a word to Mum, even though she was _crying_." Her voice had dropped almost to a whisper.

It hardly sounded like the end of the world to him. Then the implication of what she'd said hit him with the force of a breaking wave.

"So that's it, is it? Your precious _dad_." Years of suppressed resentment and frustration gathered force and started to flood out of him. He didn't even care.

Rose looked bewildered. "What?"

" _That's_ why you stopped talking to me—because your father hates me."

"No, wait…"

"Don't bother trying to deny it. I've always known. The first time I met him at cousin Teddy's place, I could tell. And it's not about Quidditch either—because we always won, and Gryffindor kept losing— that's just Al's tactful bullshit excuse."

"No, Scorp. You have to listen to me..."

"What for? All this, to find out you're just another daddy's girl. How very boring." He was relentless. "I don't know how your mother can stand it. She deserves better than to be married to a bigot."

Finally, she struck back. "Shut up, you pompous prig! How _dare_ you talk about my family? You might be able to fool yourself, but I know who you really are, and so does the rest of the world."

It was like she'd thrown a bucket of cold water on him. "What—what's that supposed to mean?" He felt his face sag in disbelief.

"Look at this place! I wouldn't put it past your grandmother to have a dozen house elves stashed in the basement."

"You think this _helps_? You try going cap in hand to every solicitor's firm in Britain with a name like mine."

Rose snorted. "I suppose you think that gives you an unique insight into what it's like to be a werewolf, or part-giant, or goblin?"

"I never said that," he shouted, giving vent to his anger again. He fell silent, sick with disappointment. He'd thought knowing the reason Rose had dumped him would make things better. The possibility of losing all respect for her had never crossed his mind.

A trace of steel entered Rose's voice. "You didn't let me finish."

"I know what you think of me now. What else is there to say?"

"All this—" She gestured around the room. "I know it isn't you. My temper got the better of me. But you're being naive, Scorp. You can't run away from the truth all your life. You and Al are a bloody pair of ostriches with your heads stuck in the sand. The past _happened_."

He seized on the only interpretation that made any kind of sense. "So the real reason you're here is to goggle at the sister of the crazy woman your grandma killed. Well, good for you. She's miserable and half-way senile now herself, so when you've gone you carry that back to your precious father to gloat."

""I came here for you, not her." There was a pleading note in Rose's voice now. "Just let me finish, please, Scorp." She ducked her head, hugging her knees again. "Mum shoved Hugo out of the room and sealed the door. She said I could be friends with you, but it would hurt Dad too much if—if anything else happened."

"I warned you," he said, temper flaring again. "I don't want to hear any more of this crap." He put his hand to the back pocket of his jeans threateningly. "You'd better leave, or—"

Rose's head snapped up. "Or what? You'll fight me? You really want to go there?" She drew her wand faster than he could blink. "I'll say what I came to say, and then I'll leave."

"Fine," he snarled. "Get on with it."

"I asked Mum why, and she wouldn't tell me. She told me to trust her, but I wouldn't. I said if she wanted me to do as she asked, I deserved to know the full story. She couldn't argue with that. So, I got my explanation." There was a long pause. "And I couldn't handle it, and I wished I'd never asked."

"You don't think _I_ deserved an explanation?"

Her eyes slid sideways. "I didn't want to burden you. I thought you had enough to worry about."

"Thanks for letting me decide that for myself."

"I should have. I need you, Scorp. That's why I came to see you. I thought if I shared what I know with you, maybe you could help me."

At the simplicity of this, his anger faded again, as quickly as it had arrived. She was still Rose, the friend who'd never given him a reason not to trust her. The one who always worked things out twice as fast as anybody in the room, but sometimes needed a cooler head to help her see the bigger picture.

Apparently she remembered it that way too. "At school, you were always so good at sorting things out, whenever me and Al were going round in circles with some mad idea." She moved to sit beside him against the pillow at the headboard. There wasn't much room, and he stiffened as she put an arm around his shoulders to steady herself.

"OK, then," he said as evenly as he could manage. "So tell me."

The silence went on for so long he was starting to wonder if she was falling asleep. "I can't," she said at last, in a surprised voice.

"Oh for God's _sake_ , Rose. What now?"

"I just worked it out. The reason I kept it from you. It wasn't because I didn't want to bother you."

Her breathing was speeding up again, and he could feel the rise and fall of her chest against his arm. He thought back to earlier in the evening, when everything had been relatively simple. "What was it then?" he said impatiently.

"I was scared to tell you. I still am. If you hear it from me, you'll never forgive me. I couldn't bear that." She gulped air, and the hairs on his arm rose in response. "I've missed you so much."

With a superhuman effort, he kept his own breathing steady and even. "Have you?"

"Mum gave you that job on merit, I know she did, don't ever think otherwise—"

 _Shit_.

"But?" He took the opportunity to remove her arm and swivelled round to face her. He knew what was coming, and braced himself to hear it.

Rose hung her head. "I think it was also partly a—a message or something."

"Great." So, this is what it came down to. The token Death Eater's son, to round out the elves, and goblins and part-giants and werewolves. Another brilliant move from the witch tipped to be the youngest Head of the Wizengamot since Albus Dumbledore.

"I'm sorry, Scorp," said Rose. "I wish it wasn't so complicated." He turned away in disgust, setting both feet firmly on the floor. She wasn't getting away with that.

"What's complicated about your mother being a politician first, decent human being second?"

"That's not what I meant!"

"Sure." He was hardly listening. His family had been right all along—he was being used, and he'd been too puffed up with his own sense of self-importance to realise it.

Rose caught hold of his elbow. "I was telling the truth when I said I didn't know until afterwards that she'd given you the job. But Mum can see how miserable I am these days, and I know she blames herself. The message was for us.""

He didn't pull his arm away, but he didn't turn around either. "What's it got to do with me?"

"I hardly go home. I basically have no life. I work all the time."

"No dates," he mocked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rose's tentative smile.

"People ask me out on dates, and I go, but—" She released his elbow to make an expressive movement with her hands. She gave another shy smile.

Whatever Rose chose to believe about the purity of her mother's motives, he had no illusions left. Whether his job had been given to him because of his name, or so the boss could get back in her daughter's good graces, it didn't matter. He'd worked his arse off to get it, fought with his family over it, and it didn't even belong to him—yet. One day it would. The knowledge freed him, and in that moment, he relaxed.

He shrugged. "Sounds familiar. Except in my case I'm usually the one doing the asking. I wouldn't really call many of them dates, mind you."

He was still facing away from her. Rose ducked her head so she could catch his eye. "So I was right? You _do_ sleep around."

He mimicked her tone of teasing banter. "Yeah, and I find myself making comparisons all the time to some girl who's ignored me for the past three years. How pathetic does that make me?"

"Pretty pathetic, I'd say." There was a strange vibration in her voice.

Slowly, he turned his head and they looked at each other, unsmiling, for a long moment. "So, no deep, dark secret sharing?"

"I should be getting home."

"Hold on. I need to get this straight. I have some detective work to do?"

She inclined her head. "If you want us to see each other again."

"No more hiding my head in the sand like a good little ostrich?"

Rose looked suddenly weary. "I don't know, Scorp. It's up to you."

"I wish you would just tell me."

"It would be wrong. It's a family thing. Does that make sense?"

"If there's one thing I do understand, it's that."

"Who will you talk to—your grandmother?"

"God, no." He didn't even need to think about it. "I can't rake up the past with her, not now. It'd be cruel."

"Maybe she deserves it," said Rose. There was a flat hard quality to her voice he didn't recognize. For the first time that day, the three years he'd missed were visible on her face. Fear twanged in his gut at the prospect of what he might be about to learn.

"I'll talk to my dad," he said slowly. "He lives in the real world, mostly."

"In that case, there is one thing I can tell you. It'll help. Something my mum said."

"Anything to make this easier," he joked. "I haven't had a real conversation with Dad since the day I left for Hogwarts." Rosie gave him a sharp look.

"Really? What did you talk about then?"

"Merlin, Rose. Can you remember what your dad said to you on platform nine and three-quarters twelve years ago?"

"I can, actually." She smiled, but she didn't look happy.

"So what did your mum say?"

"She said he looked away. She said it several times. _'Draco looked away'_. Like that."

"God almighty, Rose." Was he going to want to have anything to do with his family after hearing this story?

Rose placed a hand over his. It was cool, and he could feel the strength of her grip. For a second, he wanted to beg her not to leave him, ever again. "If you want, Scorp, I can fade into the background and everything can go back to the way it's been for the past three years. All you have to do is say the word."

"No. It's too late already." He stood up, keeping hold of her hand to pull her up. "Do you know where you're going? Do you want me to come with you?"

"I'll be fine. Never splinched myself yet." She was very close to him. He leaned forward, and rested his forehead on hers. She was only an inch shorter than him, so he didn't have to lean far. She moved to lay her cheek against his. For a long moment, they just stood there and then, inevitably, her body arched towards his. Their lips met and he reached around her waist, pulling her closer. Her hand on his neck was cool and strong, her tongue as warm and soft as he remembered. One thought—that it was a mere two steps backwards to the bed—crowded everything else out of head. But she was already disengaging.

"'Bye, Rose. See you soon."

"I hope so, Scorp." Her wand was in her hand. "Good bye."

A second later, she was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is love.


End file.
